"John Edser"  wrote in message
> JE:-
> Surely the first step is to agree on what
> constitutes cognition? IMO cognition
> requires induction (forming generalisations
> from specific instances). Deduction (forming
> specific instances from a generalisation) is
> more mechanical. A computer can do it.
> AFAIK, not a single computer can provide a
> _genuine_ act of induction.
>
This is something that is notoriously difficult for computers. Dogs can be
taught to associate chasing a car with receiving an electric shock from a
collar, but it is very hard to write a computer program that can distinguish
cars from animals.
>
>  This would require
> the computer to act outside of its given
> set of instructions (program). Evidence exists
> for animal induction e.g. chimps using
> an array of unrelated objects to build a tower
> to get at some bananas.
>
I'm not sure this is the same definition of "induction". Classification of
objects into ones "of the same kind" is one important step in the thinking
process, working out how to combine properties of objects would appear to me
to be a much higher-level process.
>
> Sharing inductions
> and provoking others to provide an induction
> (which in common parlance is just providing a
> guess of what causes something)  appears to be
> unique to humans. Asking a good (i.e. testable)
> question is inductive. Not a single trained chimp
> has ever spontaneously asked a question of
> its scientific keepers such as "who are you?".
>
This is a good point (I assume your information is accurate).
>
> However, mass confusion exists within evolutionary
> theory as to the difference between testable
> theory and just an over simplified model of a
> theory. A simplified model cannot substitute or compete
> against the theory it was simplified from, for obvious
> logical reasons. In effect, major mathematical constants
> are mostly changed when a model is oversimplified
> from  testable theory.
>
It depends whether you are simplifying or over-simplifying. For instance the
rule that the chance of a positive allele being fixed is 2s (2 * the
selective advantage) is a simplification of the mathematical expression, and
the maths are in turn based on assumptions about generations not
overlapping, random mating, and so on. However a simple rule of thumb is
handy.
>
>  Hamilton's rule, long misused
> as an over simplified model of Darwinism itself,
> deletes at least two such constants. When
> they are replaced Hamilton's rule fails
> to justify Darwinian fitness altruism. The
> constant misuse of Hamilton's rule (rb>c) to contest
> Darwinian fitness (c) with kin fitness (rb) is
> invalid.
>
Maybe you'd expand on this. Are you saying that rb and c are apples and
oranges and not measured in the same units?
>
>It seems to me that the monopolistic non competitive nature of today's
> scientific establishment is grossly slowing down its evolution.
>
The problem is that we no longer have a class of leisured gentlemen with the
time and money to pursue serious amateur science. It is also a problem in
the arts.
Science has actually done quite well despite the professionalisation of the
twentieth century, though it noteworthy that the one really big advance of
the post-war period, the discovery of the structure of DNA, was made by two
individuals who were not really supposed to be doing biochemistry. However I
am afraid that now in Britian the government risks killing the goose that
laid the golden egg, by asking the perfectly reasonable question, to a civil
servant, "how can we evaluate the results we are getting for our research
grants?".
>
> Any idea that protects itself against its own
> refutation is always an anathema to the sciences,
> just like is a non mutable gene is an anathema to
> nature.
>
Evolution by natural selection is a tautology. Even if new evidence came in
showing that creationism was correct after all for life on Earth, evolution
would remain as a possibility for life on other planets.
Few ideas in science are like this, though most mathematical ideas are
similarly irrefutable once proposed.
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